Nostalgia

I wonder how long I can stay awake tonight?
I'm doing the wake night shift, all alone, and will no doubt see the velvet hour, whatever that actually means..?

I gave my mum a lift to work this afternoon, and on my way back, I stopped in the park where the "after school club" we went to when I was between 7 and 10 years old is situated.
I remember it almost like a fairy-tale park, with big bushes and trees where we would make little "hideouts" and "nooks" to hide from the staff and our parents when they came to pick us up to go home.
I also remember it as a HUGE park, and it would take almost an hour to walk around it.
There was a big pink house in the middle of the park, with stone lions on each side of the stairs up to the front door and we were convinced the royal family would one day come and live there in the summer holidays.

The house is still there but its not pink anymore, it is a dark yellow colour, but the lions are still proudly guarding the entrance.
I walked around the park and it only took 15 Min's, but I guess that is what happens when you grow, your legs grow longer so you can walk faster and longer than you could when you had small, short legs, and you know where you want to walk, you don't need to examine each new leaf that wasn't there the last time you walked the same path.
I was a bit saddened to see that a lot of the bushes were gone and replaced with grass.
There was still a few of our hide outs lefts, at least I think they were still in there...
I didn't try to climb into the bushes to have a proper look, I wasn't alone in the park and would probably have made a fool out of myself in front of the mothers playing with their small children, and who knows I might have scarred them for life if I had just fallen over the bush to the other side...
But I left the park feeling happy and peaceful, and I have decided to visit more of the places I used to hang out at as a child/teenager, to go on a "nostalgic journey".

I am really looking forward to it.